HALESTORM Plays First Concert In Almost Two Years: 'We're Back, Motherf**kers' (Video)

HALESTORM played its first concert in almost two years last night (Friday, July 16) at The Basement East in Nashville, Tennessee. Fan-filmed video footage of the performance is available below.

Earlier in the day, HALESTORM singer Lzzy Hale tweeted: "Tonight's the night. Our first show back in almost two years. Emotions are running hot. I can't even believe it's real. See you there!"

The setlist for the gig was as follows:

01. Mayhem
02. Apocalyptic
03. Mz. Hyde
04. Do Not Disturb
05. I Get Off
06. I Am the Fire
07. I Like It Heavy
08. Break In / Dear Daughter
09. Familiar Taste of Poison
10. Drum Solo
11. Freak Like Me
12. Uncomfortable
13. Love Bites (So Do I)

Encore:

14. Here's To Us
15. Amen
16. I Miss The Misery

HALESTORM has spent the last few months recording its new album for a tentative late 2021 release. The LP's first single will arrive in August.

During an appearance on the June 11 edition of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation Virtual Invasion", Lzzy spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for HALESTORM's follow-up to 2018's "Vicious" album. She said: "It's going great. We're actually kind of in the eleventh hour. Everything is starting to really congeal and just reveal itself. So we're at the tail end of it. We already have a first single picked; that just happened. So you're definitely going to be hearing music sooner than later. As far as the release date of the record, I don't have that yet."

Hale went on to reflect on the songwriting process for the new HALESTORM LP, some of which took part after touring was shut down due to coronavirus precautions. She said: "I think a lot of us [artists] were questioning, over the past year and change, about why am I still doing this? Who am I without touring? Who am I without all of the normal things that make my life normal? And we took, or at least I — I can't speak for the guys — but I took writing when there was no real schedules, 'cause we didn't know what was gonna open up, I took to writing to kind of have that be my escape, have that be my stage. So what you're going to hear on this record is a lot of that, a lot of me placing myself in this spot, in this communion of people that I feel most comfortable, and just surrounded by everyone that loves the same music that I do."

Lzzy also talked about once again working with producer Nick Raskulinecz, who first helmed HALESTORM's 2017 effort "ReAniMate 3.0: The CoVeRs eP" and was previously described by Hale as the group's "fifth member."

"He's so passionate and he's just a fan of music," she said. "And I know that sounds surprising — oh, yeah, a music producer that isn't a fan of music. There are a lot of those; there are a lot of those types of producers that are not fans of your music, let alone really listening to your genre. So it's just great to be working with a producer that just loves the same kind of music and knows what we can do.

"We've written so much material for this record, and a lot of it we end up throwing out and then rewriting and whatever," she explained. "What people don't understand is you have to be willing to work so hard just to throw it all away and do it again and make sure it's right, 'cause it has to be right. 'Cause you don't wanna look back and be, like, 'Oh, I should have said something about that.'"

HALESTORM's latest release was last year's "Halestorm Reimagined", a collection of the band's reworked original songs as well as a cover of "I Will Always Love You", the love ballad made famous by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton.

Lzzy and her brother Arejay formed the band in 1998 while in middle school. Guitarist Joe Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by bassist Josh Smith in 2004.

In December 2018, HALESTORM was nominated for a "Best Rock Performance" Grammy Award for its song "Uncomfortable". Six years earlier, the band won its first Grammy in the category of "Best Hard Rock/ Metal Performance" for "Love Bites (So Do I)". According to the Grammy web site, Lzzy became the first woman to earn a Grammy in the category.